Convince Me

by Nina Sadowsky

  There were so many things I accepted at face value: Justin’s pedigree, the terms of my investment in Convincer, his steady hand on the financial till, his seemingly genuine affection for me, and reliance on me.

  You were good, my former friend, you were in your own way quite brilliant.

  An odd kind of peace settles within me with that mental tip of the hat.

  But the question still remains. Was Justin’s death an accident as the police initially suspected before my current nightmare? A combination of drugs and an unfortunately sharp curve? Or was he murdered? Did someone kill him?

  The irony strikes me. The Justin that I knew and loved was generous with his own time and money to excess. As a consequence, he made friends everywhere. But the other Justin, the liar I now know him to be, was quietly and secretly accumulating god knows how many enemies.

  I wonder why Sunil hasn’t been to see me. Even if he hasn’t found a magic bullet to get me out of this, he could at least give me a progress report.

  My heart’s beating a mile a minute. For the very first time since the cops showed up at the Convincer office, I believe, truly believe, that I might in fact go to prison for life. Or worse.

  When I hear the guard call “Barber,” it takes a moment for my name to register. Then I spring to my feet, desperate to escape this holding cell populated by dark souls and the acrid scent of desperation. I realize the scent is my own.

  “Me!” I yell absurdly, like a child volunteering to write on a blackboard. “That’s me,” I repeat more softly.

  “You’ve made bail.”

  Thank god.

  Each step of my release is agonizingly slow, from the opening of the cell to the return of my belongings.

  When the last door slides open, I step through with an audible sigh.

  Waiting for me is Annie, flanked by her parents and her cousin Lizzie. With them is a dumpy middle-aged woman, clad in a suit and carrying a briefcase, who I deduce is my new representation. She looks about as threatening as a baby bunny, not the firepower I expect I’m going to need.

  “Monica Stanton,” she introduces herself, shaking my hand with a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Oh!” The startled exclamation bursts from my lips and Stanton gives me an amused and knowing glance.

  Even I know Monica Stanton’s name and reputation. She’s a killer, exactly who I need.

  Just proving, once again, that looks can be deceiving.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CAROL

  I once read a magazine article about a woman in the middle of a divorce who spied on her cheating husband for days on end by camping out in her car with supplies of bottled water, beef jerky, and Depends. The last is starting to feel like a good idea. I’ve been in my car waiting for over two hours now.

  Finally. There he is, Will, blinking in the sun. He’s with Annie, her parents, and a couple of women I’m not sure I can place. Santiago glances in my direction and I slide lower in my seat, glad I’ve taken the precaution of a nondescript rental. I suspected Annie would get involved with Will’s release and I need to stay in the shadows if I am to protect her.

  The group splits up. The two women depart in a Porsche Cayenne. Definitely not from the public defender’s office then. Lucky you, Will. That Annie is a loyal girl. She must have hooked you up with someone powerful.

  I expected Will would get released in twenty-four hours. From what I understand, the evidence against him for Justin’s murder is circumstantial and the financial crimes at Convincer are right now a hornet’s nest of confusion and accusations.

  I sigh. Determining the truth is so complicated these days. The deliberate obfuscation is keeping him out of jail. For now.

  Laura and Santiago take off in Laura’s Subaru wagon. Annie and Will embrace.

  They remain intertwined and rigidly still for so long it makes me uncomfortable. Then a subtle tremble shakes the interlocked pair from head to toe. Will’s crying. Holding it back as best he can, but wracked with sobs. He and Annie cling to each other for dear life. I have to look away, it feels dirty to watch them.

  A gut-hollowing cloud of loneliness descends over me, so pervasive and powerful it leaves me cringing. My palms sweat against the steering wheel. I pull the car’s visor down and stare at my reflection in its little mirror, hoping to reassure myself that yes, I’m still here. Still alive on this earth. Still thinking, doing, feeling.

  The mirror’s too small for me to see my whole image, so I examine myself in fragments. My makeup is perfectly applied. This was something my mother taught me before she died: A lady never goes outside without her “face on.” (I must have been only three years old the first time I remember her saying that. It could be my earliest memory. I was confounded and afraid: Did this mean she might take her face off once we were back inside our house?)

  A silk scarf hides the worst of my neck. A cold-shoulder style sweater accentuates the blessedly still smooth skin on the tops of my shoulders. But with all the effort I’ve made, I still find countless flaws.

  I have three hairs sprouting on my chin. Two are brown; one is long and gray and wiry. I long for a tweezer even though I know I don’t have one on me. A dusting of brown spots has erupted near my hairline. I would like to pretend they are freckles born from my new life in the Southern California sun, but I know they are age spots. The thin skin above my upper lip shows a faint pucker, a telltale sign of worse to follow.

  I snap the visor shut. No point in dwelling on what can’t be changed. If life has taught me one thing, that would be it. You are where you are. And the sooner any person accepts reality and examines the facts squarely instead of pretending to themselves, or wishing things were different, the sooner that person can actually let go of the past, make a change, and move on.

  The pretenders and the wishers stay stuck, for the simple fact that deep down they are happy with whatever sick or twisted status quo they’ve convinced themselves they need. Codependency. The shrink I saw after Justin went away to college taught me about that.

  Will and Annie are in her car now, and I follow them, trying to keep a few cars back. I rehearse what I’ll say if they catch me: “What a crazy coincidence, but I’m so happy to see you both!”

  I also suspect I may be paranoid; surely Annie and Will aren’t peering around corners to see if they’re being followed! They have enough on their plates.

  Either way, I hold Will responsible for my son’s death. He may have fooled Justin once, Annie, and me too, for that matter, but now that I know who he truly is, I can only admire Justin more.

  And look how that was repaid! Will Barber deserves no mercy.

  All that fake bullshit Will spouted at Justin’s funeral when he had been the very one to stab Justin in the back!

  And in the heart too, it appears, I note wryly as I watch Will run long fingers through Annie’s hair.

  It’s hard for any parent to see a child’s flaws, or “stretches,” as they used to say at Justin’s progressive preschool. It’s one reason why mental illness goes untreated or drug addictions unseen until the victim is too far gone to save. No one is handed a manual when they have a kid; we all just make it up as we go along and hope for the best.

  But a mother knows her son, and I knew my son better than most. He was capable of the expedient lie certainly, and I’m not particularly proud he had that propensity, but a ruthless killer he was not. I know Will Barber is at the heart of this bloody mess.

  The urgency to protect and connect with Annie burns hotly inside me. Justin was the apple of my eye, of course, but I often wished for a daughter. Someone to shop and gossip with, someone with whom I could commiserate about the many indignities of being female in this man’s world. No matter how close Justin and I were, we never could have had that kind of relationship.

  When it becomes apparent that Annie’s heading to Will’
s place, I stop following them and take a different route. I’ll show up there before them, I bet, if I use the shortcut Justin showed me on Rose. Better yet, I’ll find a coffee place and use the bathroom, get something to drink, check my makeup.

  Offering up a silent prayer to my son, I promise him that justice will be done. Will Barber may be a conniving, murderous son of a bitch, but he won’t get away with it. And he won’t get Annie in the end, not if I have anything to say about it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  ANNIE

  Will’s apartment near the beach has always felt comfortable and homey to me. As long as I’ve known him, he’s said he plans to move “this year.” Somehow it never happens. But I think the place suits him. It’s small and spare and organized. The sound of the ocean is a constant, soothing background soundtrack. Will spends much of his time on the terrace, which provides a view spectacular enough to compensate for the cramped living space.

  Will’s showering. I’m making us some tea.

  I grab a bottle of scotch from his rolling bar cart. I’m my mother’s daughter, after all; a shot for “medicinal purposes” has never seemed more appropriate.

  Will comes back in clean and changed, damp strands of hair clinging to his neck. His eyes have a haunted quality; I hope it’s just exhaustion.

  We sit outside on the terrace. We drink tea with healthy dollops of scotch and share a package of Nilla Wafers I found in a cupboard. We compare notes and trade information, bringing each other up to speed about Justin’s many, many lies and transgressions we’ve unearthed. Will also shares what Monica’s learned the police have in evidence against him. It’s largely circumstantial, but includes an email from Justin that Molly received posthumously, and another Justin sent to Carol accusing Will of embezzlement and expressing fear for his life.

  “Well,” I say finally. “I’m kind of speechless.”

  “Yeah,” Will agrees. “It’s a lot to take in. Listen, Annie…” He trails off.

  “Go on. Spit it out.”

  “Thanks for Monica Stanton. You have no idea…”

  “Aw shucks, Barber, you would have done the same for me.” Will stares so deeply into my eyes that I feel a blush start to rise from my chest.

  There’s a charged moment between us. Magnetic. As in having the quality of magnetism.

  magnetism [ˈmag-nə-ˈti-zəm]

  noun, a physical phenomenon produced by the motion of electric charge, resulting in attractive and repulsive forces between objects

  Never has a classic definition been so apt. This feels good. This feels awful. This definitely feels weird. I get up and go inside on the pretext of wanting more scotch. Maybe it’s not a pretext. I pour a healthy slug into my mug.

  I pause for a minute next to six small square framed drawings mounted on the wall. They are a set of cocktail napkins on which Will and Justin scribbled sample logos for Convincer, the sixth and final drawing being a close approximation of the ultimate choice.

  When I go back out to the terrace, Will’s standing, leaning on the railing, staring out at the beige sand below and the gray-blue Pacific beyond. A seagull aggressively attacks a fast-food wrapper down on the beach, wheeling about and squawking in an unseemly manner.

  “I’m sorry,” Will says without meeting my eyes.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I reply lightly.

  “Annie.” Will turns to me and brings soulful eyes to meet mine. He takes both my hands between his larger ones.

  “No, Will,” I implore, extricating my hands from his. “Don’t.”

  I’m grieving and confused and full of regrets. The last thing I want is another one.

  “All right. Let me just say this, though. When I saw on the news what Hugh had done, when I thought you might have been hurt…or worse…I can’t stand the idea of losing you. So, whatever it looks like, just…be with me. Here. Now.”

  Will enfolds me in a hug. I surrender to it. He’s warm and solid and smells like Ivory soap. I’d like to stay in his embrace all day, but it’s confusing the hell out of me. I pull away, plop back down in one of the terrace’s two chairs, and shake another cookie loose from the packet.

  Will pulls his phone from his pants pocket. “It’s my mother,” he says with some dread in his voice as he looks at the screen. “I’d better get this over with.”

  He answers his cell and steps inside to take the call.

  The waves beat against the sand with their rhythmic insistence. Surfers fall and rise in the water. Three wild parrots fly by, a little close for comfort. They alight on the next terrace and one of them tilts its emerald green head at me.

  “You’re a loser,” the bird lectures me. “Loser. Fuck you.”

  Thanks for the support, I think wryly.

  The trio takes flight again, their bright feathers in sharp relief against the brilliant blue sky.

  Piecing Justin together is like trying to coax a clear image from a kaleidoscope. The pieces keep turning and falling as my eyes strain to make sense of the jumble. There is the story he presented, the lies we’ve uncovered, the version Carol sees, some version of a truth that contains elements of all.

  The resolve that took root in Monica Stanton’s elegant Beverly Hills office settles into my core. Justin Childs, my beloved husband, took a wrecking ball to my life. I can’t sit back and just watch it crumble.

  I sift and sort through what I know. Justin lied recklessly, expeditiously, relentlessly. Yet he was able to manipulate us all, even from the grave! I shake my head thinking about Molly, how easily she turned on Will, how willing she was to believe the worst of him.

  Will’s confession of feelings for me pricks uncomfortably. Maybe Molly was so quick to believe Justin’s email because she sensed an underlying truth, at least in how he feels about me.

  Did Justin fool Carol too? I wonder. She worshipped the ground he walked on, but how much did she know about his true nature? About how terribly her beloved son has betrayed me and Will?

  I pull over the legal pad with the timeline of lies Will and I constructed; all of Justin’s (known) falsehoods listed on one side, truths (as we now know them) lined up opposite. I study the pages. There’s still a raft of blanks and question marks.

  I study the puzzle that is my husband’s real and manufactured life. Questions lead to speculations, then turn into suspicions.

  With a blossoming sense of hope, I am virtually certain I know exactly what happened. And how to prove it.

  It dawns on me that maybe I am Justin’s equal, after all. Fuck that, I’m his better.

  A smile, an honest-to-god real smile, tugs at my lips.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  WILL

  This outdoor bar is one of my favorite haunts in Venice. It’s perched on a rooftop right above the strand, making creative and somewhat awkward use of what an old building had to offer when a hipster hotel chain took over the site.

  The hotel’s only ten stories high, but everything else along the beach is low, so the ocean views are spectacular. The Santa Monica Pier amusement park is visible to the north, the neon lights of the Ferris wheel winking electric color against the night sky.

  Pyramidal heat lamps flare more for atmosphere than warmth around groupings of couches and low tables. The crowd in the bar is lively, fashionable. Laughter bubbles, the occasional shout or groan pops the buzz of conversation. I’m reminded that other people’s lives are not a shit show.

  Did I mention I’ve had a couple of martinis?

  I order another one at the standing-room-only bar.

  “They were my father’s special-occasion cocktail,” I tell the bartender. “Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas.”

  “To your father,” he replies convivially as he pours icy liquid from a shaker into a glass.

  “He died yesterday.”

 
The bartender plops two olives into my drink. “Sorry to hear it, man. This one’s on the house. Was it sudden?”

  “Yeah. He heard I got arrested for murder and had a heart attack.”

  The bartender stops moving for the first time since I’ve seen him tonight. He looks at me intently, trying to gauge if I’m full of shit.

  “Yeah,” I continue. “No lie. His wife, Brandy, she said they did their best, but he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She’s a fucking child, by the way, younger than I am. At least he died a happy man.”

  I raise my martini glass skyward in a toast to my father, then drain it.

  “One more, my good man!” I slam the glass down on the bar, but the bartender has moved on, whirring a blender down the bar.

  This time, the pretty tattooed bartender serves me. She’s fucking gorgeous; I wonder why she shaves off her hair. Is it because she’s so beautiful? The red light above the bar glints off her shiny skull. The tattoo above her left ear reads DEMON CHILD.

  I wander over to the railing at the western end of the bar, my legs surprisingly rubbery. That’s what three martinis will do to you. Or was it four?

  Random snippets of conversation drift over to me:

  “A fucking unitard! I kid you not!”

  “No, I think she’s his fifth wife. What about that Brazilian girl? Wasn’t he married to her?”

  “And then I told him to take his blueprints and shove them up his bleached asshole!”

  Maybe other people’s lives are a shit show, after all.

  I think about Annie. About her pulling away when I tried to get real about my feelings.

  I remember how I felt the day Justin proposed to her. I was in on it, of course, Justin’s trusty lieutenant. The whole elaborate setup at the hotel downtown. Inviting our friends. Flying in Justin’s mother from New York. Arranging for that ridiculous slide.